Wednesday, April 8, 2015

For whom the BHL tolls (Time marches on...)


What, you didn't think that I'd let this morning's big news from By Hand London go un-posted-about, did you?

By Hand London: Some Heavy Hearts and Big News From Us

The TL; DR summary of the BHL post is as follows:
  • BHL bit off more than they could chew with their kickstarter-funded fabric printing business.
  • Because of the overhead of printing/carrying paper patterns, they're doing a 180 on their paper-patterns-only post from a few months ago and will be distributing ONLY PDF patterns, once they run out of their paper pattern inventory.
  • The BHL girls are going back to their day jobs, but will continue to produce new PDF patterns as a labor of love and do have a few new patterns in the works.
I admire them for being transparent with this post and admitting and taking responsibility for the business mistakes that they made. Reading between the lines, it sounds like that getting into the fabric printing business really torpedoed their finances, even with the kickstarter funding. 

I do not own nor have I have I ever made any By Hand London patterns, but I've certainly followed them. They certainly have been one of the higher profile "new indies" of the past couple of years. I'm not an expert at the pattern business, but as a software industry veteran who lived in the Bay Area during the dotcom explosion/implosion and with a resume that includes eight cumulative years at three different startups, I do know something about business failures. Here are my thoughts on where BHL made missteps:
  • No clear business plan or product roadmap: We're going to start distributing PDF patterns! No, wait, PDF patterns are eating too many sales from our paper patterns, which we printed a ton of and have an overstock of! Ooh, and now we're going to print fabric, too!

    At best, BHL came across as indecisive. At worst, they came across as unprofessional. When you're asking customers to pay over $20 USD for a pattern (expensive, even by indie standards), you had better come across as having your shit together both creatively and professionally.
  • Lack of marketing and manufacturing research before expanding: Clearly, the women at BHL had no idea what they were getting into when they kicked off their funding campaign for their fabric printing business.

    From a customer standpoint, custom-printed fabric is very expensive. With several other fabric printing vendors out there, was BHL really filling a niche that couldn't be filled by another manufacturer? From their post, I got the impression that they thought that they'd be able to hit the ground running as soon as they got their printer without accounting for the test runs and fine-tuning that would be needed to produce saleable fabric.
  • Unrealistic sales forecasts: As BHL admitted in their post, they had overly optimistic sales forecasts (leading me to wonder how much research was done in this area) and that the slow summer months hit them hard. We also saw this point pop up with the excess of printed pattern inventory that they had.
  • Limited target demographic: Based on their designs and size range, I can guess that the target demographic for BHL's patterns is slender, 20-something women who attend a lot of weddings and parties. And who sew. That's just not a huge customer pool for purchasing your product.

    While BHL isn't the worst offender of an indie with a limited size range, it's not particularly inclusive, either. And how many party dresses does one woman need? Even between the years of 27 and 32, when it seemed like I had a wedding to attend every few weeks, I rotated three different dresses among the occasions. To me, the Holly jumpsuit was the only "interesting" pattern they've released in the past year or two, and even in that case, I thought that the original bodice given to the pattern testers was better than the one that they ended up releasing.
  • Tone-deaf marketing sense and customer service: I cringed when BHL pulled their PDF patterns from their website without any forewarning. I can't think of another pattern company that has pulled a major product line without warning.

    What's worse, if you poke around the blogosphere and GOMI, you'll find numerous stories from customers who had paid for PDF patterns but had not downloaded them yet when the patterns got pulled from their website. These paying customers had to fight to get their money refunded, even though a number of them would have been perfectly happy to have just been emailed the PDF that they had previously paid for. A 14 or 30 day grace period or "last call on PDFs" would have saved BHL a lot of bad publicity and angry customers.
  • Ignoring what your customers want: To me, this is probably one of the biggest contributors to BHL's woes.

    If your customers are telling you (via sales) that they prefer PDF patterns, then you don't pull PDF patterns from distribution just because you have an excess of inventory of paper patterns. You put those paper patterns on sale, perhaps write off some losses and lick your wounds, and you focus MORE energy on PDFs, not less. On a positive note, this appears to be what BHL's plan is for the future.
What's your take on By Hand London's big announcement? Were you at all surprised by the news?

My life is starting to return to normal after my father's recent passing. Cancer sucks. I'm back in Seattle and back at work.

I did sew that Simplicity raglan sweatshirt (the one that looks like the Grainline Linden) as a quick sewjo-boosting project, and it's cute even with a few fit issues, so I'll be blogging that soon.  And I want to get back to my pattern release recaps! I've missed writing those! However, I'm not sure that I'll continue post them on an weekly-basis. Like BHL, that turned out to be more work than I anticipated. But I will get back to them, and I will be doing them on a regular basis, maybe just not as tight of a schedule as before.

29 comments:

  1. Michelle, I had not realised your father had passed away. Cancer does suck. Losing a parent is terribly hard. many condolences to you and your family.

    This is a brilliant post Michelle. I clicked and read the BHL post, and admired their honesty. (I quite liked their fabric designs but I would think there is a limited market for 19 quid a metre cotton poplin - you can get tana lawn for less than that). Your analysis is spot on, especially the part about listening to your customers. It's the old taxi driver story - it's a better strategy to work longer on the busy days and go home on the quiet ones, rather than aiming for a minimum take each day.
    Good call on the pattern release recaps - I admired how often you did those but I can see it is a major time suck. I'll still look forward to them.
    Take care of yourself.

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  2. He passed away about a week and a half ago. I hadn't posted anything about it yet, since I'm still sorting through my emotions about it. I've been debating on whether I wanted to write a separate post about it or not. I loved my dad very much and what happened to him wasn't fair.

    On a lighter note, when I read the BHL post this morning, I couldn't NOT comment about it. I do appreciate their honesty, and I suspect that they won't be the only ones out of the current crop of indies who posts something along that line in the coming year or so.

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  3. I am so sorry to hear that. Writing a post is hard and personal. Maybe it's something you want to do later. I love it when people show their love for others on their blogs but it's hard to do.

    On a thought about pdfs, I don't sew with the big 4 because I can't readily figure out the whole ease thing (I know it's just arithmetic but I don't want to have to decide how much ease I want, then use the ease charts plus the pattern info to decide what size to buy, and THEN still have to make all my fitting adjustments). So I use Style Arc, Burda and Lekala. Plus some Ottobres and Jalies. But, I might sometimes buy Vogue except they cost about $30 here and sometimes $15 on sale. Do you know if the big 4 have started doing pdfs yet? It seems to me that's one of the reasons for the popularity of indie patterns - instant gratification and availability anywhere in the world. I guess perhaps as the US customer base is so large, it isn't worth the money for Vogue etc to do this, though. If I could go to my local and buy a pattern for three bucks I probably wouldn't ever download it either. Anyway, just riffing on your post!

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    1. I *think* Simplicity has downloads, but I don't know of anyone who has used them. I stopped sewing Big 4 for a while because it was such a crapshoot to figure out the ease thing, but I've made two Simplicity patterns in the past few months, and both turned out true-to-size, so I don't know if I got lucky or if maybe they're finally moving away from the excessive ease problem. Like you, though, I generally find the established "indies" more reliable, size-wise.

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  4. My condolences to you on your fathers passing.

    I agree on every point with BHL. Abhorrent customer service, shoddy pattern making, and a poor business strategy (if any at all). I would be mightily pissed off if I was one of the investors for their Kickstarter campaign. Begging for donations when your business is on a knife edge, then seeing all that money go down the drain, is tantamount to theft.

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    1. The BHL kickstarter thing reminded me a bit of a certain blogger who asked for GoFundMe donations for a new sewing machine so that she could continue to sew and blog, and then quit blogging shortly thereafter. I don't like piling on people when they're down, but both situations did cause me to raise my eyebrows a bit.

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    2. As far as I'm aware, that particular blogger left her blog because she was getting bullied/harrassed from GOMI and it was in her best interests (from a mental health point of view) to leave the online world for a while.

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  5. I have no real interest in anything they release (the ill fitting/ill sewn samples and the price), but holy cow you're right it's like BYF and her "buy me a Bernina!" debacle.

    They squandered so much money on a wish. Gah.

    I would assume we will see lots more of this if smaller Indies remain in that mindset of 'SBC BFFs' and not thinking as business owners. It's unfortunate but...meh.

    Truly sorry for your loss. I cannot even imagine the pain and the roller coaster. Thoughts to you and your family during this time.

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    1. So true on their samples! The most recent dress had some horrible samples-- wonky, poorly sewn hems, some truly badly sewn darts (which is a shondeh when the darts are the dominant design feature). The samples are there to generate interest in the pattern and get sewists excited to buy it and make it. When those inspiration pieces are poorly rendered, they aren't going to easily drum up that enthusiasm.

      I get the indie boom-- people get excited over their hobby, see a talent, and think they can offer something different in the market than what the current offerings are. And some of these new indies really are offering something unique (Stepalica and Paprika come to mind). What I don't get is the whole SBC/ indie climate. It's very cliquey and insular for one.

      Michelle, I am sorry for your loss.

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    2. Thanks. "Roller coaster" is certainly the best way to describe the last two months.

      I thought that the samples from the most recent pattern were pretty awful. Those darts didn't look good on any of the models. And I could be wrong, but I just don't see how that design would work at all on anyone with more than a perky B-cup.

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  6. We all have lessons to learn along the way but it looks like they bit off more than they could chew or afford. Asking people to fund you without adequate research is just plain stupid and disrespectful to everyone. Their patterns photos were very poor and I was surprised that anyone would spend good money on dresses that had so many wrinkles and drag lines on skinny models.

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    1. I will never understand the pattern companies that try to sell patterns with poorly sewn or badly-fitting samples. Follow the example of Sewaholic and Grainline, which usually have very nicely sewn and fitted samples. If you need more time to sew up a better sample, then delay your pattern release by a week or two. A LOT of the "new indies" are guilty of the wonky sample thing--even a few whose designs I am generally a fan of.

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    2. I also don't think some of the indies who are really in the SBC with tours and such don't do themselves any favors when the participating blogs have issues as well. A recent knit top I saw on a reviewer was so poorly fitted that if I were the designer I would be reluctant to be excited for the review, even though it was overwhelmingly positive. I don't know if she was part of a tour or just posted on her own. If it's the first, then that review is part of a planned marketing/ pattern roll-out and could end up being a liability to that pattern's sales.

      That said, there are some good indies who typically have well done samples but have the occasional head-scratcher of a mistake get through. I'm thinking about those new BGD shorts that look like they could a woman through her crotch or the drippy women's top from Blank Slate that looked like she picked fabrics that were going through a very bad divorce. And the sad diner waitress walk of shame dress from Muse... all three of these companies typically have inspirational sample photos. Maybe the misses stand out more as a result?

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  7. I'm really sorry for your loss Michelle.

    Your post on BHL is very interesting, and I appreciate your perspective. I'd never bought any BHL patterns as I couldn't imagine myself wearing (or fitting) any of them.

    On an unrelated note, I can report that the Muse Natalie does work on the uber busty (I think 32HH/J qualifies). I've finished my Natalie dress, and while it needs a small FBA which I am working on for the next version, the dress does look good and have the effect of breaking up the front dual pillow scene rather than emphasising it. I'm hoping to photograph and blog or PR it in the next week.

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    1. 34HH/J. Dreaming myself smaller!

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    2. Thanks! And good to know about the Natalie. I did just buy Muse's Melissa blouse/dress/skirt (in spite of the poor fabric choice of the sample dress) because A) I thought that the blouse and skirt were cute and B) I think it will be quite a flattering style on a large bust.

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  8. Glad to see you back, I did wonder how things were. My condolences, grief is an exhausting process.

    Good to come back talking about the BHL people too, a non-emotional topic. I did not warm to any of their patterns, wrong body shape and irrelevant designs for me. The prices didn't help either! It does make me curious about how many indie pattern companies survive and what keeps them viable.

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    1. I think it comes from working at so many ill-fated companies earlier in my career (especially as an individual contributor where I felt helpless as I watched the train derail...or maybe it's because I'm an introverted female working in STEM, but that's a whole other topic), but I want to pull my hair out and scream when I see small/startup companies make blatantly bad business decisions.

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  9. Agree with everything you said! When they announced their kickstarter campaign I asked myself how that project could possibly work out and how could there be enough demand...I guess I got my answer.

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    1. The price of custom-printed fabric is prohibitive and is going to limit your customer base. And even if you're willing to shell out $$$ for a special project, seeing mixed reviews for the product quality of a company like Spoonflower, which as been at the game for a while, would make me very wary of purchasing from a total newcomer.

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  10. I'm so sorry for your loss.

    I have the Anna pattern and look forward to making a version. I think with the right fabric, the Anna could be a nice non-party dress. The Anna and the jumpsuit are really the only BHLs that seem like they were designed for more versatility.

    It will be interesting to watch the indie market in the next few years. There's just so many new companies. I can't keep up with it. I think some of the new companies that may work out will be those that aren't integrated into some kind of SBC circle-jerk. Although that fan-base/community can provide some excitement and sales, it is alienating to people not part of it. And seriously, some of those blog tours can suck the energy out of a pattern by just becoming monotonous. And I think the fan-base too easily turns fan-gurl and thus the gushing love blinds the designer to limitations and problems.

    I also think the indies that make it will be those that give something unique and/or address an under-served group. SBCC, for example, is addressing the petite market with a variety of trendy styles, versatile basics. Most women don't need tons of party dresses or oddly peplumed skirts, but knit skirts and tops, some easy-throw-on woven blouses? Interesting wardrobe staples for lots of working women. I think this is why I like HP-- basic pieces, some trends, but also the designs are interesting and practical.

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    1. I've liked versions of the Anna that I've seen. That was the pattern that definitely set them apart, at least initially.

      I'm predicting that we'll see more of these indies turn out to be "one hit wonders", where they have an interesting and very successful pattern early on, but have trouble following up with future releases. I can already think of a few that are appearing to fall into this category.

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    2. I remember your post about the indies that seem "lost at sea." I've had a hard time keeping track of/ up with all the indies. A few that I like that are low producers (only have a few patterns and don't release often) are ones that I get a feeling that making patterns under that label is a low priority, side thing from a regular job or designing for another imprint. Or that releasing patterns is slow because of more unique, intricate designs. Or some combination therein.

      I think the transition to pdf patterns could help smaller, slower producing indies stay around to grow an audience, depending on a range of factors about business sense.

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    3. Agreed. I've been intrigued by the offerings from Seamster Patterns, and while I know that she hasn't released anything new in quite some time, if you follow her blog, she's been dealing with personal/family issues, so it's understandable that a side job of pattern design probably wasn't her top priority. And Betsy (SBCC) still has her day job of drafting/grading patterns for other companies and people--although she did just release two nice, basic patterns for those of us in the petite size niche.

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    4. Continuing on... The woman who runs Victory patterns (not always my aesthetic, but sometimes some interesting designs) has been alluding to a book deal, which I guess would explain why they haven't released anything in ~1 year. Jalie always takes forever between releases--I think it's been about a year since their last release, too.

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    5. I think another factor for the indies is what they give for the price. Muse's recent shirtdress is a great example of a bargain because the pattern has options for the dress, a skirt, and a top. Even at the regular price, that's more bang for the buck than just a skirt or short pattern for a higher price.

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  11. My sympathies to you and your family Michelle. A dreadful thing to lose a parent. My thoughts are with you.

    Good to see you back posting. As a business trainer who spent a couple of years working for the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme where I taught new business owners Small Business Management and then mentored them for their first year of business I can say you have really brought up some very important points that a lot of new businesses don't consider - to their detriment. Well said.

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  12. I am so sorry about your father, may he rest in peace and may your sorrow be eased.

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  13. Hi Michelle. I read your review of the Simplicity Raglan Shirt and it was really nice, it came out very cute. I'm full of condolences on your father's passing. I also lost my father to lung cancer in 2006. I took care of him for months and he died Christmas morning. It took a long time to manage my grief and I was not prepared for how it would affect me. So be kind and patient to yourself. It may be a year before you don't spontaneously burst into tears in public (which was ultra embarrassing for me). The word melancholy is a good description for the state you may find yourself in. If hospice was involved, it is a good idea to take advantage of their services, esp. if they offer grief support groups (even if it isn't your style). In regard to BHL, I never purchased their patterns because they did not have a large enough size range. I only spend over $10/pattern if it is an all sizes deal so I'd rather buy a HotPattern that I can fit very easily and is not problematic than from a company that cannot even get their own samples right. I also don't wear semi-formal dresses often enough to forego a $1-$5 sale from the Joann's around the corner for a big 4 pattern vs. ordering one from overseas that insists on no pdfs.

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